I visited the North Pole this weekend. Okay, not exactly the North Pole, but I figured it’d be a very similar experience as to the one I had this weekend at the Houston Nutcracker Market. There are hundreds of vendors that set up shop in the NRG Convention Center to spread holiday cheer to thousands of consumers and with so many holiday items and happy people, it might as well have been Santa’s haven.

Since older sis lives in The Woodlands now, she invited her friend, our mom, twin sis, and our bff, in for a girls’ weekend to attend the Nutcracker Market in Houston. It was the first time the majority of us have attend so it really was a magical, and sometimes overwhelming, experience.

The Nutcracker Market is a four-day shopping extravaganza where you can browse rows and rows of vendors from all across the country selling their goods. Shop and purchase anything from clothes to holiday decor to gourmet food. You can also buy drinks (alcoholic and non-alcoholic) to walk around with, and they do have some food options.

Since The Woodlands sits about 45 minutes to the Northwest of Houston proper, my brother-in-law graciously reserved a bus for us to travel down to the event so that 1) we didn’t drink and drive, and 2) we had a comfortable place to fit 6 women and all our purchases! Honestly, it was the way to go to this. We didn’t have to worry about parking and our driver stayed in the parking lot the whole time so we could drop off bags throughout the day.

It did not disappoint, and we all left with bags full of home decor, artisan food items and more.

I think we will making attending the market a yearly tradition. We had a blast! It really was a day full of holiday cheer.